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Tsukasa doesn’t know why, but he wanders back to the juice shop, the day after the battle, lets the owner make him a second custom dish in the shape of his head, as he hadn’t finished the first. It tastes good, he supposes, not that he cares all that much about a man he doubts he’ll ever see again or how good his food is.
As the current main Rider wanders in with some friends, Tsukasa observes them from the corner.
He still doesn’t know if he needs to become further involved, but this core timeline in all its instability is set to merge with another world, already is, and it’s accelerated enough for the Badan Empire to use that instability. And all of it is centered here in Zawame City. Gaim is a good Rider, but…
( Be honest, a part of him whispers. You just miss her, just like Yuusuke once almost left you both for a ghost.
You weren’t even there for her when she was injured enough to die. She died saving you. You can’t even know her screams except in your nightmares.
He ignores it.)
However, Gaim catches sight of him and walks over to your corner table.
“Hello,” he says. “I didn’t properly introduce myself. I’m Kazuraba Kouta, Arm—well, with those from outside Zawame, I guess I’m Kamen Rider Gaim.”
Tsukasa hmms.
“I already gave my name,” he says. Gaim laughs.
“Fair enough,” he says. “Wait, if you’re still here… is there still something wrong?”
Well why else would you be fighting?
“Possibly,” Tsukasa replies. “Though I assume you know about it. My job is to preserve the worlds, and Zawame, right now… well, it’s full of potential gaps to another world.”
(Familiar ones, he tries not to think.)
Gaim’s face hardens, and he clenches his fist.
“Helheim,” he says in instant recognition.
“Oh,” Tsukasa offers, because the forest had never been given a name back then, “is that what the world is called?”
Gaim nods.
“Whatever that World was before, it was destroyed by Helheim, a sentient forest,” he explains. “And now Helheim is coming to invade Earth.”
“And you’re going to stop it?” Tsukasa asks. Gaim shrugs.
“I really, really hope so,” he says. “I think I can find a way, at least, to save humanity. There’s… an organization, Yggdrasil, and they want to cull the population so that a billion can survive, maximum. I refuse to see that as the only way.”
He’s good, and he’s passionate. But Tsukasa had known that already. He also has a feeling things will get worse for him.
He knows how Riders’ stories go, and…
He supposes knows how Gaim’s does, when Natsumi had been tied to him since before she even activated her own Sengoku Driver.
“Things will likely become far worse for you, in the months to come,” Tsukasa does tell him. “I’m afraid I have no doubts of that. So I ask you this: how much are you willing to sacrifice?”
Gaim catches you looking at his friends before you do.
“Not them,” he says. “Not my friends. But not the world, either.”
“You’re the type to save a flower,” Tsukasa comments, and Gaim laughs, awkwardly.
“I mean, yeah,” he says. “Not always, but… a life is a life.”
Tsukasa merely hmms. He… isn’t much a believer in that morality. He knows that sometimes it can be broken.
He still doesn’t fault his predecessors, but sometimes knowing that they had, at other times, fought for every single life is never exactly good for his self confidence.
“Not that he needs it,” the Natsumi in his head snarks.
“Sometimes,” he says. “Sacrifices are made for a reason.”
“You really think so?” Gaim asks, distrustfully. Tsukasa supposes that’s fair, with an organization like Yggdrasill against him, and he leans back in his chair, crossing his legs and taking a bite of… whatever the owner is calling this thing.
“Sometimes someone goes too far,” he says. “And you have to make a choice.”
“Then I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” Gaim replies, confidently. “Can I ask you a question, Sempai?”
“You can ask,” Tsukasa says, honestly. “I might not answer.”
“Who did you lose?”
Tsukasa freezes.
“I…” he says. Gaim smiles, awkwardly.
“Nevermind,” he says. “That was rude.”
“No, it’s just… complicated,” Tsukasa makes himself say. “You just… remind me of them, both of them.”
“Oh,” Gaim says. “Did you… did you have to kill them?”
“They had to kill me,” Tsukasa replies. Because he didn’t have to kill Yuusuke. Not really. But he did, at the same time. To preserve and protect him and his world. And he’d known it was temporary. “And one of them succeeded.”
Gaim blinks.
“But you’re here in front of me,” he says. Tsukasa scoffs.
“Whatever our Showa predecessors say,” he says. “Death is less permanent for Riders than you might think. People do stay dead, but sometimes…”
He trails off. Sometimes, yes. People live. It’s why Joker wasn’t the only Rider out of Fuuto to be a part of this recent crisis, even if Shoutaro had been there twice. Hell, it’s why he himself had been there, but…
“Don’t bet on it, though,” he says. “Sometimes you’ll find yourself not among the lucky ones.”
“Oh,” Gaim says. “I… but you’d still be okay with that? Death for the greater good.”
“Okay with it, no,” Tsukasa replies. “Understand its necessity, well…”
“I don’t know if I could do it, really,” Gaim admits. “A friend, I… I killed him, and I didn’t know it at the time, but I…”
Tsukasa leans towards him, keeping his face carefully neutral.
“You’ll cross that bridge when you get there, right?” He asks. Gaim looks him in the eyes.
“So what did happen to them?” He asks.
“A world that was more dangerous than we thought,” Tsukasa replies. “You should be careful with Helheim.”
“I already know that,” Gaim snaps. “It’s dangerous, but if I can just talk to the Overlords, I could… maybe I’ll find a way.”
Tsukasa takes another look into the boy’s eyes, his body language.
He look sure, and he looks like a hero.
(He looks like Natsumi before a fight.)
“Then I guess I can leave these worlds in the hands of you and your allies,” he replies.
“You really think I can do it?”
“I think… I know Kamen Rider Gaim has done the impossible, before,” Tsukasa admits. “Let’s see if I don’t have to save or destroy this world yet.”
Gaim hmms, looking down. He reacts surprisingly little to the threat of destruction. And then he asks “do you have anyone left?”
“What?”
“Are… are you alone?” Gaim asks.
“I heard you,” Tsukasa snaps. “And… maybe I am. But that’s my story.”
Daiki is… too complicated an issue to tell someone else. No matter how much Gaim reminds him of… of them.
“I’m sorry,” Kouta offers. Tsukasa passes his dish over to the younger Rider.
“Don’t be,” he says. “Just… promise me you won’t die doing something stupid.”
Kouta laughs.
“I wish I could promise that,” he says. “But I do promise to find a way to save this world.”
He says it so surely that Tsukasa really believes him, so he smirks as he leaves.
(“I like him,” the Yuusuke in his head says.)
“Good luck, Gaim,” he says.
And, since he’d already paid the owner, he leaves without any further comment.
He… he needs to go home.